Since I didn't have my empeg at my desk earlier, I never did see it. Once I got home, I grabbed these two pictures from my empeg webcam for others to see it, without having to install v218. I just hope my spare empeg here recovers...

[image]http://riocar.org/upload/empegbbs/empeg4.png[/image]
[image]http://riocar.org/upload/empegbbs/empeg42.png[/image]

edit: I have no clue why the above UBB image call isn't working. Here they are as links:
http://riocar.org/upload/empegbbs/empeg4.png
http://riocar.org/upload/empegbbs/empeg42.png

Hmm.. anyone know why when i press the rotary knob twice to get the clock the Time/Date is completly wrong (well date is accurate within 1 day normally)? I am using 2.0 b11 with hijack v220. Everytime I reboot the time and date show a different incorrect time such as it will show 5:52 when the time i set on the empeg is the time on my computer, 11:52.

-Greg

Did you adjust the time offset in your config?

anyone know why when i press the rotary knob twice to get the clock the Time/Date is completly wrong

If you are referring to Hijack's "pop up" clock feature, this happens because you haven't set the time zone properly in the config.ini. This is (I think) a FAQ entry.

Mark: Perhaps you need to have the clock popup refuse to function unless it has a timezone properly set in config.ini? At least three people have been confused by this.

Then people will be confused as to why it doesn't work at all.. Only way to solve it is to display a msg saying "Error: Timezone not set in config.ini" or something..

That's what I meant. Refuse it with an error message.

Forgot to mention that I had that in there. Yes I do read the FAQ ; ) . I did get it to work though. For some reason when i moved it under my "dance=" 's configs it worked. Maybe it wasnt being read by hijack?

-Greg

heres v118 if you wanan check it out on your own player.. you may wanna put it on the website just as an achive item,, i was lucky wenough to grab it before i took off to work.. i bet i was the first to download it

Oh, and bonus points to anyone besides Tony Fabris who can identify the CD playing from these 2 shots. (I know Tony probably already knows, as his played count is close to mine on this one).

Maybe UBB doesn't support PNG files? Just gif and jpg?

Howard Shore - At the Sign of the Prancing Pony, LoTR Soundtrack ?

/Michael

Easy: TLotR

For some reason when i moved it under my "dance=" 's configs it worked. Maybe it wasnt being read by hijack?

Is your config.ini too big?

As far as I can tell, Mark usually leaves the old versions on the server, at least the recent ones. He just doesn't leave links to them. All you have to do is type it in by hand.

Just with a quick test, I was able to go back all the way to v198, like so:

http://empeg-hijack.sourceforge.net/v198.hijack.v200b11.mk2.zImage

You might be able to go all the way back, I'm not sure. Keep in mind the format changes, too. That "b11" changes to a "b7" in there somewhere...

BTW - As a side note to this, Mark didn't even make his horizontal menus as annoying as he could have. At least his version was left justified...

>At least his version was left justified...

Yup.. I just didn't care for the effort required to really faithfully mess it up.

Cheers

Ok, time to get rough.

I'm glad you weren't designing the player UI. If we're going to start bashing the player UI, I think Hijack need a LOT of cleanup. If you're worried about kernel space, there's a lot of fluff you can clean up. A few bytes here and a few bytes there, as you said.

Let me try to explain the stuff you missed in my original message...

I said that you should update your font to match the current player font. To which you said:
I'm not willing to blow the memory needed for such an extravagence. The folks with Mk1 players have too little music buffer space as is, and even the Mk2's don't have enough to buffer a single track in most cases.

To which I'll say, what on earth are you talking about? Your current font is a knock-off (even if by fluke) of the player font before I made the clean-up mods (but 1-bit by the looks of it). I was just asking you to change the letter forms, not add support for anti-aliasing. The font would more than likely be smaller, not larger than your current one, because I made some characters narrower. Anyway, your font mixes serif and sanserif forms, plus a lot of the characters are unbalanced. I do use some antialiasing on "@" "%" etc. and the numbers have always had it. You want a 1bit bitmap of the current letter forms? Are you only using a 7bit font? (might as well if you're not gonna localise). If you're using 8bit then you could always switch to 7 and use another 7bit set for small characters. These can also be done without anti-aliasing (some characters will definitely not look as nice as the player ones).

Next...

>How about .. disallowing button codes to be sent to the player
>while one of your popups is active?

What kind of popups? I kinda like being able to adjust the volume (or mute) at ANY time, even when a menu or popup is active.

What kind of popups? The ONLY kind. The ones your hack creates (PopUp0 etc..). Are you trying to tell me, that within the short time-out time, you don't make a selection right away, but you adjust your volume? And then make a selection? That's completely bad UI. The focus is the popup. It is a menu. It makes zero sense to have input be sent to the player in the background. Not until that popup is gone. You're inconsistent here too. You trap the menu press, you trap next/prev and you also trap the "top" button. What if I wanted to switch tracks or pause, etc while a popup was active? Senseless, but just wanted to make a point. PLEASE fix this by trapping all buttons for the duration of the popup. If you don't like the idea of multiple buttons having the ability to cancel the popup, then just keep the "cancel" and "top" buttons allowing ending the menu as it is now. Speaking of trapping, while in the Hijack menu itself, you should be trapping button presses so they don't queue up and get spit back when you exit back to the player.

I also find that the time-out on the popups is too short. Maybe a global hijack time-out setting would be nice (which would apply to your main menu and those popups - I also think the Hijack time-out is too short ).

Another popup complaint. The selection is prefaced by the text "Select Action:" That takes up more than HALF the wdith of the screen. What were those complaints about horizontal menus again? I'd rather have no prompt text at all, but see multiple of the choices presented at the same time (horizontal would be fine, it would match the player software.) At least change it to just "Select:" or "Action:" - it's pretty obvious what to do.

Back to the fonts for a sec... You can see on the popups that they don't match the player font forms. Is there any way you can access the player font while doing those popups? I'm assuming it's in memory at that point. Do you know how it can be used? You mentioned before that you need to have a font as part of Hijack because it needs to be able to display data before the disks spin up. Well, have you thought about a very cut-down font and then just using the player font once everything's started up?

I vote right now to change the Hijack menu to prevent the highlight from ever going to the very bottom of the display or the very top. Keep it in the middle.

Which brings me to my first point that you didn't get. If I use your config.ini feature to remove hijack menu items until I have only THREE items, what happens? Does the first item appear twice in the list? Once at the top and once at the bottom? If you have a fixed highlight, when you have less items than fill the entire screen, you should allow the highlight to move and not loop the menu. That's good UI.

>BTW, are you going to document exactly what the "label" names are
>for removing Hijack menu items in config.ini?

Sure, just hold down the menu button for about a second, and it gives you a complete listing of them all.

Umm, that's a bit of a pain in the ass. I'm sure you can just copy the menu name list and put that up somewhere, right? LOREN! This is some of the stuff (that isn't available on Mark's site) that you should grab to include in your FAQ.

Back to button code names. This list is confusing as hell and shouldn't be. You want to save some space? Remove all the duplication and stuck to what's actually on the remote. I don't think we need 3 ways to do NextTrack. It's also inconsistent because you're missing "hush." You also have both "play" and "pause" and all sorts of non-existent long-press names that will obviously NOT work because they don't automatically translate to long presses (they're just a duplicate name for the raw button: Detail and Info for example)

And yes, I just found that doing a long-press of the OK/Menu button when selecting something from a popup allows you to send the long-press of the selected button name. For instance, "Detail" that I mentioned before. However, this doesn't make much sense because there's no visual clue as to whether you're supposed to long-press or not. (Of course the Rio remote itself is pretty inconsistent as well in labling... But that's not an excuse).

If you wanted to kill two birds with one stone, you could make button names like "Detail" already equal the proper long-press value. Then it wouldn't simply be a duplicate of "Info" and we could use them in PopUps with a single normal press. Ok, please consider this an official request for this feature. I'm using a nice little steering-wheel remote that has very few buttons. The popups will become MUCH handier with this implemented.

So now you want to save space? Kill the view font option/menu item. Remove Breakout, expand it so it doesn't end after the first line, add multiple rows of stuff to break, make the break-away sections smaller as you progress in level and... Make it a useland app that doesn't reside in kernel space.

I appreciate the small footprint and I appreciate all the features of Hijack (I meant to follow up to the thread where you were mentioning some of its features - I thought you weren't even pointing out its mist useful parts). But, with all the praise you get (from me too) I wouldn't want your head to get too big and think that there's no room for improvement.

Bruno

First chill out. =]
Second.... the Remove menu items stuff is already in the FAQ. It says in the config.ini section for menu_remove:

Removes menu item from Hijack menu. Works for all menu items.
Example: "menu_remove=Knob Rotate Redefinition"

Every menu item is listed in this FAQ entry. (except for the left/right balance one... which i'm getting to...)

Besides, how is it MORE a pain in the ass to just press a button and scroll than it is to go to fire up a browser, fo to a site, and find a menu list.

As for the Button Code Names, my list organization ain't great, but it's semi organized. I'm gonna get around to cleaning it up. And i don't know what you mean about Detail not sending a long press, because it sure as hell does on my Pioneer remote. I know you probably weren't talkin' to me, but i thought i'd chime in.

I was looking through your FAQ at the list before before the descriptions and obviously they weren't the exact strings used on the menu.

Why is this list handier? You want to click the hijackmenu multiple times while trying to stuff a bunch of items into config ini? Meanwhile dealing with the time-out... Or would you rather have a convenient list to just copy and paste?

I did mention that some of your items didn't show defaults, sorry I haven't replied again mentioning which ones. I have been meaning to though. The FAQ is really good, but it doesn't replace a more manual-like document for someone new. I pretty much know how to use everything in there now, but for reference purposes a nice table is always valuable. When you have the chance, you should probably also go over your table entries and make sure their descriptions are always in the same format and that you show the defaults in the same location within each cell. Sometimes you mention the default in the middle of a paragraph.

The table where you mention the .LETTER modifiers isn't that clear. Again, I know what they all do, but I felt a few of them could use some definition/explanation text to help anyone trying to learn how to use Hijack. I'll make an effort some time soon and send you some mail with exactly what I'm talking about.

The "Detail" button name does exactly the same thing as the "Info" code for me. If this isn't the correct behaviour then something's up. "Detail.L" brings up the Detail screen, but that isn't possible to stuff directly into a popup. Everything I wrote to Mark about the buttons is accurate at the time of writing (running Hijack 213). So make sure you're not actually using Detail.L while telling me it's working for you.

Bruno

Hey Loren, thanks for the HiJack FAQ. I FINALLY installed it a few days ago and the FAQ was part of the reason that I did. I know that most of the FAQ is still under construction, but I can see it is on its way to greatness! And you are very brave making a faq for a program that is updated 3 times a day!

There is a rather simple solution to all of this: uninstall Hijack.

cat /dev/drivel >/dev/null

'Tell you what, Bruno.

Pay me the $1800 I paid for my Empeg, and I'll implement your nice fonts and subtle UI nuances, just for you. Keyed off your personal player's serial number.

-ml

Okay, for those who are unwilling to poke through a Hijack patch file, I have extracted the kernel font from Hijack, and attached it to this posting.

If anyone wants to update it for hipness or just plain better karma, then have a go at it and send it back to me when done.

Cheers

You're welcome. I will hopefully get around to the HTTP and FTP stuff this weekend. Time's tight right now. I wish i knew more about the programming end... because there'a TON of info i wouldn't have a clue how to right up for people who want to hook into hijack for programming userland stuff.

Does anyone have any information at all on how to get going on userland apps? I havn't poked at any of the source code for anything yet, but I'm interested in playing with the userland stuff. There are a couple userland apps listed in the FAQ, but there has to be more information on how the userland apps interface with hijack somewhhere?

If I get around to playing with userland apps I'll be happy to write up a FAQ entry on how to do it. Anyone have any docs or pointings to old threads that happened before I became an empeg addict?

Mark, if you can't take criticism, then you really should refrain from giving it out. It doesn't suit you. And if you don't find working on Hijack any fun, then maybe you should think about retiring it and find something else to hack on. Would I want that to happen? No. But I find your recent attitude a little egocentric. I won't appologise if this goes against the common grain around here.

If you don't want to have fonts matching the player fonts then I don't know why you bothered to use one that looks like it's ripped from the player fonts to begin with. I told you that I would make any bitmap mods needed. You just needed to tell me what format you wanted the file in, etc. Again, this has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with the work you've done on Hijack.

Bruno

Here's the font. Didn't change any of the special characters (@ * & %). Didn't make anything wider than your defined 6 even though your code and layout would probably still deal with it by changing the define. A bunch of characters are now narrower. Some characters can't be made to match the player font exactly because of dimensional constraints obviously (Q for instance, and the lowercase m, w, g, y and j.

Should be good though.

Bruno

Does anyone have any information at all on how to get going on userland apps? I havn't poked at any of the source code for anything yet, but I'm interested in playing with the userland stuff. There are a couple userland apps listed in the FAQ, but there has to be more information on how the userland apps interface with hijack somewhhere?

If I get around to playing with userland apps I'll be happy to write up a FAQ entry on how to do it. Anyone have any docs or pointings to old threads that happened before I became an empeg addict?

Well, I for one am happy you're on board with developing stuff... Welcome to the fold. Now, there's no real detailed intro on how to develop apps. If you look at the Hijack kernel patch, there's a bit of a skeleton application listed there.

Incidentally I'm coming close to releasing my alarm clock application, and I'll release the source as well when that happens. It should be enough to get you started. No promises on when, though. Until then, look at the kernel source (I think it's in the comments to hijack.c or hijack.h, but I can't remember offhand.)

Jesus, Bruno... If you've got some kind of beef, Mark's got an email address... What's the point of you guys arguing about this crap here? "Take it outside, fellas."

I personally think the Hijack font looks *nothing* like the player font. Nothing!!!! I'm the only person who's been stupid enough to actually rip the player font (for the trivia game), and that was because I didn't know you had already done so much work with it at the time.

Yeah, maybe Mark's been showing some attitude lately, and maybe it's a good thing... To be honest, he puts more work into Hijack than we've seen from the Empeg development team lately. He's fixing bugs in their code, offering to provide "workaround" features that the dev team won't agree to do, etc.

Yeah, the Empeg team is busy with other secret projects, and the Empeg is no longer their meal ticket. So I can't blame them for not having time to work on our beloved software. Hell, the guy who created the damn thing "isn't allowed to touch the player code" anymore. (Yes, I know that was facetious.)

So when I see someone like Mark who as as much time and effort to put into the player, I'm willing to tolerate a little bit of attitude, and, as you've said, egocentricism. That's fine by me. He's got incredible skills and he's putting them to use on a product that we all love. I'll take the occasional release with horizontal menus and the occasional curt response on the BBS if it means a better product. In this whole deal, I think you'e the one who's been confrontational here.

Oh, great. I just went to the Hijack page so I could take a look at the kernel patch to help matthew_k out, and I see that Mark has pulled it down because of this little spat. If this is some dick-waving contest, I hope you guys can just measure up and bury the hatchet. I personally think you're making a lot out of nothing, Bruno... I wish I could support you on this, but I think you're going on a rampage and creating an issue when there is none.

But now it's definitely an issue, because the software's been yanked.

Sigh.

Geez Bruno, what do ya want for nuthin? Let's try to be more constructive around here. Otherwise we're no better than the dumbasses on Slashdot that claim they could build an Empeg in 2 weeks that is 1/8 the price, and with 2x more features.

-Hoagy.

drama makes the world go round.. hijack r.i.p. just like that.. thanks for the help mark if your really done.. i enjoyed it.. and will contunie to run the latest hijack version to date.. even if that is v224